[Reviews - 64]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 12879 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Ist in the Labours of Love Trilogy
Chapter One


“Bloody ‘ell Slayer…you punch ‘em in the face first, then you kick ‘em in the nuts, not the other way round, it’s hard to land a decent punch to the head if there already doubled over”

Spike griped, dabbing at his bleeding nose, having caught an un-necessary punch because of her, what he considered ‘sloppy technique’.

“You do it your way…that’s why your nose looks like it does!” Buffy grinned

“My nose looks like this slayer, because of your bloody piss-poor fighting!” The grin left her face and she scowled at him, hissing

“Right! That’s it! Go away, keep well away from ME! Right away, keep out of my sight, leave town! I’ve had enough of you and your so called ‘helping’ I always end up rescuing you, the majority of the time, anyway!”

Buffy stomped on ahead, slamming open the door to the Magic Box. Giles had heard them bickering all down the road…

“Oh yeah?” Spike closed the door, and followed her all through the shop.

“Yeah” They both sat at the table, waiting for Giles.

“Seems some of those blows you get to the head are causing you brain damage…some sort of amnesia, love… that must be it! Whom rescuing whom? So, tell me, who killed the Maharmos for you the other week?”

“That was different, it had poisonous spines…” Buffy studied her nails.

“The Styk demon then?”

“You need preternatural sight to see those properly…” she bit her bottom lip.

“The chaos demon”

“Its horns were all ew, and, and drippy and…I couldn’t get a decent hold on them…” Buffy looked everywhere other than Spike.

“Always some bloody excuse… The succubus, then”

“She was invisible…well to me she was” Buffy had to turn away…

“Mugglewart demon?”

“He…hold on! **I** killed the Mugglewart” Buffy said

“No you didn’t, you only stabbed it in the one heart, you have to do the two in order to kill it”

“Really?” Buffy frowned, then turned away again.

“I saved you from that Tickle-Me-Elmo thingy”

“The wha- oh…the Tykulemo. Only because it got in a lucky hit because of your bad technique!”

Spike suppressed a smile. Buffy had her back to him now, as she couldn’t suppress hers. He was right, (As usual) but it would be a cold day in hell before she’d admit it…

Giles closed his takings ledger, and sighed, he looked across at the duo…he had a BIG job for them…a really big important job, and it needed the two of them, and they needed to work together 100%, because Buffy’s very existence could possibly depend on Spike…

“Fruitful patrol?”

“Trying to teach her a better fighting technique…call yourself a Watcher? …She’s an awful fighter!” Spike said, putting his feet up on the table, crossing them while teetering on the back two legs of the chair.

“Now, you two, play nice! Buffy go make some tea!” Giles instructed. Delaying tactics as to what he’d got to ask, or rather tell them…

“NO! Me, I’ll do it, she makes bloody awful tea…the gods alone know what she actually does to it to make it taste so bloody awful…”

Spike righted his chair and quickly went to the kitchen, the little curtained off area that housed a small sink unit, a wall cupboard, a work surface and a fridge. On top of the work surface was a microwave oven and a kettle. Spike filled the kettle and put it onto boil, and set about rinsing mugs and getting the tray ready.

Buffy was fuming; she narrowed her eyes at the vampire’s retreating back.

“Giles, remind me again just WHY I have to have him tagging along all the time?”

Buffy huffed, folding her arms and pouting. Spike watched her from the kitchen. He smiled. He loved it when she was all indignant and thought she knew better…but fair play to her, she always took what he said to her on board, and did what he suggested the next time around, and not that she’d ever admit it, and she really liked having someone of her equal to help…

“Buffy…Spike’s a ‘master vampire’ he has incredible strengths…be guided by him, will you?”

“Huh…master vampire indeed…their standards MUST be slipping, tsk” Buffy said, witheringly.

“I HEARD that, slayer!” Spike swished the little curtain aside and glared at her. Buffy tried to suppress a grin…she studied her shoes instead.

Giles despaired…cleaned his glasses, fit enough to rub a whole right through the lenses…

“Tea up!” Spike announced, bringing in the tea tray.

“Thought you’d gone to bloody grow the stuff too, time it took you!” Buffy groused, helping herself to a mugful.

“Well, you see slayer, that’s where you and I differ, I actually let the kettle boil, and then I let the tea brew before it’s poured. The gnat’s-piss you make, huh, it’s a wonder it can crawl out of the pot it’s so bloody weak!”

Spike said, sitting back savouring the brew. Buffy scowled. Everybody said she made lousy tea… Giles watched them bicker, and despaired that they’d EVER get long.

“So, come on, what do you want to ask me…us?” Buffy asked rolling her eyes.

“Do you think that…well…look…do you think that you could actually work with each other, for once…I mean could you try and get on…like him a little?” Giles asked, despairing.

Buffy made a big eyed frown

“Do I LIKE him? – Hello – he’s a vampire, I’m a slayer!”

“Course she likes me…why does she let me save her so often, else?” Spike said, grinning.

“YOU save ME – Don’t make me laugh”

“Always has to be the eternal pissing contest with you, doesn’t it?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Children…” Giles said wearily…they all drank their (delicious) tea. Giles was relieved when they left, still bickering, about whether it was better to inflict as much pain as possible to the demon, or just to go straight in with the stake.
There was nothing else for it, desperate measures and all that, they were going to need a little help…………

‘Ah, this should do it…’ Giles said to himself, taking out a small, and very old book from the top shelf. ‘Spells of the Heart’ the front cover read.

Sitting at the table, Giles sipped his (very) large Scotch he’d treated himself to, he needed it to unwind after those two and their constant arguing…He flipped through the various pages…hmm, this one looks interesting…

’A spell to bond temporarily’…He wrote in his leather bound notebook the items required…herbs…lighted candles…Live chicken’s blood- ah, no, ok, next one…

‘Sacrifice one goat kid for each…um, no………ah,

‘Take the wrists of the couple to be bonded and cut so that the blood can mingle freely….’ I don’t think so!………

Oh, this one looks better;

‘Binding Spell’ ‘may take a little time, not an instant spell, for couples that severely dislike one another’ was all that had been translated from the ancient Sumerian. “This one will do” Giles said quietly to himself.

It was his fault that he didn’t take a little time out, and bother to translate the rest of the text, or even bother to translate the text properly, for ‘binding’ read ‘bonding,’ it would have told him this; ‘Care must be taken with this spell, even a hint of like or admiration will be many times magnified, and the binding would be made permanent and of deep love if such feelings were encountered initially, this spell is sometimes…Giles couldn’t read the next word, ‘permanent’, but he’d already decided that this was the one he wanted to use anyway.

………Hmm, just an incantation, the couple’s names written on a piece of paper, and something that belonged to each of them able to be burned…Giles got up, and went into the training room. He fished out an old and bloodstained tee shirt of Spike’s, and from the waste paper basket, some hair of Buffy’s cleaned out of her hairbrush.

Giles ripped a piece of cloth from the shirt, wrapped the hair in it, wrote ‘Spike, William the Bloody’ and Buffy Anne Summers on a piece of paper, said the incantation, asked Aphrodite, and Cupid to smile on his request, burnt the offering, buried the ashes.

The spell was cast.

He felt a little guilty. If Buffy knew…she’d…he shuddered, didn’t bear thinking about! I mean, it was ridiculous! A Watcher, doing a spell of the heart to temporarily bond two people, well, one person and a demon, so they would stop bickering long enough to get a job done…he’d be hounded out of the Watcher’s Guild if they knew…Right, the next thing he had to do, was to convince the couple in question to actually DO the job…





You must login (register) to review.